Chad Kerley Takes Top Spot in BMX Street Semi-Final

October 11, 2013 By Dew Tour

Returning to San Francisco, California for the second consecutive year, the Toyota City Championships invited the top athletes to show the crowds what they have and it brought fans in full to cheer during the BMX Street Semi-Finals.

With 25 riders being separated into two heats, riders receive scores for their best of three runs from six judges. The street course is full of hubba ledges, rails and more for the riders to show their creativity.

Riding in the first stacked heat we saw everyone from Stevie Churchill throwing flairs on the smallest quarter pipe and bunny hop 360 tailwhips off the manual pad and truck drivers down the stairs, to Chad Kerley upping his score on every go by linking technical tricks such as double peg up the handrail with a barspin out to manual all the way around into an ice pick down the big hubba ledge.

Chad Kerley, truck driver

“I started my best run with a 180 bar to manual to fakie no-hander over the manual pad. You always have to get the first trick to get the ball rolling,” said Kerley following the semi-final. “I also knew I wanted to do 540 somewhere, so I made my way back to the big stair set, just went for it and it worked out. When you get something that you roll the dice on it’s a good feeling.”

Coming into the second heat we saw more technical bangers from Garrett Reynolds throwing a barspin to ice pick down the big hubba, a barspin manual to barspin out on the picnic table and even throwing a truck driver down the stairs.

By the time it was all said and done in the semi-final, Kerley kept the top spot with Reynolds right behind him. They will both be back tomorrow with the rest of the top 10 riders to go all out in the final.

“I’m super happy to made it to make it to the finals! I like the course a lot. It’s going to be sick to ride it with a few less people and get a feel for it,” said Reynolds once his runs were wrapped, “I wanted to do some stuff but I don’t want to get hit because it’s pretty chaotic. It’s pretty chaotic but it’s dope, I like riding with everyone but I definitely saved some stuff.”